Latest News

It’s all about the climb

I’m always hearing about this player or that player changing teams because the team wasn’t winning their division, winning this tournament or that, moving up a division…etc. So, I’ll hear about kids that were once on one team, the next season on another, and then another, and yet another. By the time they are 15 or 16, they have been on 5 or 6 different teams with 5 or 6 different clubs. It seems to happen most with the 1-14 year olds. There are lots of reasons why…many are valid, some are not.

What are we teaching our kids? It seems to me we’re pushing the immediate results. Need to win now, need to be the top of the group now….What about the development that it takes to get there? We are such as results orientated society that many times we lose sight of the process and the incremental development happening right in front of us because of the need to WIN.

With Goalkeepers, it is about the climb…the slow progression and improvement. It take time and development, both physically and mentally to make that near impossible save be possible and that difficult save look easy. At J4K, goalkeeper training is about focusing on the core strengths a keeper must develop to be successful. It take thousands and thousands of repetitions to master the position. Even the highest level goalkeepers still train on the core skills day-in and day-out.

If everything in life was easy to attain, more people would be doing it. Let’s not lose sight of the process and the work it take to rise above. Remember, it’s all about the climb.